Best 59 quotes of Aaron Mcgruder on MyQuotes

And I'm not so in love with making people mad that I want to live my life around it.

Anyone will acknowledge that there's a lot of people other than those who are elected who run the government, and who are in permanent positions, and long-term positions, appointed positions - not voted in by anybody. That kind of gnaws away, I think, at the idea of democracy. The two-party system, again, is an issue. What we see is no desire on behalf of anyone to begin to address these problems.

Anyone with a gun can go out and commit an act of terrorism, even without a political affiliation.

At least when I was young, in high school: "Eh, voting doesn't mean nothing." You don't really know that to be true, you just say it. Then you get older, and responsible, and you go, "Oh heck, let me vote." And then you vote and you go away. I was actually right when I was 16.

But I know that in Toronto and Vancouver there are all the comforts of America, and yet there's a difference in the people, and I had health care.

Cuba was fantastic, at least just in terms of... Not to romanticize or glorify it, but just seeing a place that had not really been touched by the hand of American capitalism. Because it's a genuinely different place. A lot of times when you travel, things start to feel the same from place to place to place, because the same people own everything all around the world.

Don't get me wrong, it definitely ain't the Democratic Party either. They're so bad, I mean I'm actually starting to believe that John Kerry was just token resistance, that he literally was down with George W.Bush. It was just such a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to see, that campaign. So, you know, I don't know what's going on.

Fame is not your friend. It ain't necessarily your enemy. It is what it is.

Fidel Castro just talked a long time, and he talked and he talked and he talked and he talked... and he talked during the meeting. I think it was about four hours. But I guess that's part of the Castro spirit.

Fluid and energetic and wild very, very smart and very, very funny.

Good satire goes beyond the specific point it’s trying to make and teaches you how to think critically. Even after your favorite cartoonist retires or [Stephen] Colbert wraps it up, you’re not left believing everything they’re telling you.

I cannot be made into the commentator for the unspoken black masses.

I don't know what the future holds. It seems to be going in a really bad, bad place really quickly, and I don't have the answers and I don't have the solutions and I don't know what's gonna happen to change it. But the continued apathy will only lead to a worse situation for everybody.

I don't think the American government has a lot of respect for culture.

I don't want the news to be patriotic. I don't want to see flags on the lapels of the anchors. I don't want any of that.

I do the interviews and then I read about myself. I understand it and I get what it is. But there's so much stuff that I say, either jokingly or lightheartedly, that gets printed like I'm dead serious.

I do think comics are a dying art form because newspapers are a dying medium. But it's not to say that in the next generation, where there's people getting their news electronically, comics won't survive. Right now, they're still largely attached to the newspaper world. And the more they can break away from that, the more they have a chance to live on.

If your intentions are already bad, and then you still make giant mistakes, it seems like things just get worse. I get little joy seeing this, because what I don't see is the public saying, "Wow, those guys are really bad, maybe we should re-evaluate everything." I don't see that response with the scandals, I don't see it with the indictments, I don't see it after Katrina, I don't see the public going, "Wow, let's really re-examine the entire direction this country is going.

I have to remind myself - I think the population of the United States has been subjected to the most sophisticated form of propaganda and mind control that any group of people has been exposed to in a very, very long time. It's difficult for people in this country to get any kind of factual information and to make intelligent decisions based on them.

I just feel like the country is guilty. I think we should be deeply ashamed for what we've done in Iraq, and we've gotta reconcile that, and we've gotta find some way to make peace with this, and we can't do that until we acknowledge what took place, and ultimately, I think that's the poison that is killing this administration. And I think there's a lot of people in the country who are guilty of allowing themselves to be duped in a very sloppy, sloppy manner.

I just tell jokes, and I think a lot of people take it too seriously. It's not that I don't have things that I'm angry about in the world, and I think most decent human beings are upset about things, and even upset about things in their own country, but I'm not a particularly unhappy fellow.

I'm kind of conscious and aware of how ridiculous everyone involved with politics or talking about politics, especially on television, is - all the shouting matches and the screaming and the over-the-top personalities, and everyone's just playing. It's like WWF for news, almost. It's really ridiculous and I really don't want to be a part of it, and I'm not trying to put on this persona of this angry revolutionary to get people to follow me.

I'm not crazy impressed with New York. I mean, I don't buy into that whole thing: Everyone in New York is all sophisticated, and they're into art and sophisticated things, and everyone in L.A. is just shallow entertainment people. I think people are just shallow across the board.

I really get a little bit confused by all this "angry angry angry" talk when all I do is tell jokes and at least some people find it funny.

I saw Nader shortly before the election and - I voted him the time before, because I liked the sort of long-term strategy of building a viable third party. So, okay, we'll get enough votes, you get a little bit more money, and maybe, if there's continued growth, then maybe eventually there's hope for a viable, legitimate third party. I think the reason why I didn't vote for him last time was because we tried that and it didn't work. Ralph Nader is a very smart guy, and I think he's got a lot of good ideas.

I think, being a public figure - which, I have to admit, I guess I'm largely responsible for, in terms of going out and putting myself out there - comes with its own burdens, and its own things that cause you stress, and its own worries.

I think everyone's kind of just whistling and pretending everything's OK. At the heart of this is the cover-up, and the misleading the country to war in Iraq. And quite honestly, I don't think Republicans actually did a particularly good or sophisticated job, but I think everybody wanted to be fooled. I remember being on the Bill Maher show talking about how ridiculous this was before the invasion. And, you know, a lot of people, even Democrats, had been so easily thrown into this fear frenzy that they lost common sense.

I think people were a little bit too concerned about what I would or would not be allowed to say. So let me just get that out of the way and get on to the business of telling, you know, a story, or two, or three, or 15. And also to say, "Okay, look. Here it is, don't worry about it. The restrictions and the watered-down and all the stuff that you thought was gonna happen really isn't the case." So we done got that out the way, and now we can just kind of move on.

I think revolution is always a little bit possible. I think it won't look or sound anything like what we would expect. But I think revolution is very difficult, and I'm not optimistic for any kind of dramatic change.

I think that's always been part of the thinking behind the script, that - and I really tried really hard to impress that upon the staff of the show, the animation staff - to try to get them to understand that we would only be able to get away with what we were writing if the visuals were appealing enough that it was like a balance, and even people who didn't like what they were hearing would still not want to turn away because what they were seeing was so nice. So that was kind of my hunch, and I think it worked.

I think the people should demand accountability on the voting. I think there's no point in voting if you're not gonna demand fairness and be able to verify each vote. And other countries can do this fairly easily. So I don't think you really want democracy if you're not willing to take that first step.

I think there's a lot of good and bad to L.A. One of the things you have to consider is that you can, if you're lucky, make a decent living here. That's a big plus. That's pretty positive. The weather is OK.

I think the two-party system is a complete sham; I think it is designed so that the voters can feel like they have the satisfaction of "throwing those bums out of office" every four to eight years, but without the direction of the country ever significantly changing.

I think, ultimately, the problem with something like this is that you actually have so many more opportunities to say something than you actually have things worth saying. And then, as an artist who doesn't want to do bad work, gosh, how do you fill up all that space when you really don't have anything actually worthwhile to say? And that's what makes the job tough, because the fans get mad - "That's not funny," or "You've been sucking for several months now." And you go, "It's not my fault! I'm trying.

I think you have to play the game on every level. If you need a friendly, charismatic, good-looking guy to be the mouthpiece, then so be it. And maybe Ralph Nader should just be behind the scenes telling that guy what to say.

It's difficult to overcome what you're getting beamed into your brain by the television every day. The worthlessness of journalism today is just making the country confused and bewildered and lost.

It's not the norm when creators have any protections with regards to creative control. And so it took some time, I think, for the strip to gain enough popularity where I had enough leverage to come in and say, "It has to be done in a certain way or it's not going to be done at all," and then have people willing to put up with that who were ultimately paying for it. You know, for them to be willing to kind of concede those kind of things. It just takes time, you know?

I want the news delivered unbiased. I thought that was the whole point with journalism.

I went to Havana, and I was like, "Wow, there's culture everywhere!" That was one thing that I did notice when I went to Cuba was that artists are paid to be artists, and poets are paid to be poets, and musicians are paid to be musicians by the government. The government - and I'm not saying that the Cuban government's perfect - but the government does place a value on culture.

I wonder what it means when your grandson is more crotchety than you are.

Meeting Fidel Castro was really cool. It's cool because it's Fidel, and it's a world leader, and there's so much history behind the man and who he is in this hemisphere. And then at the end of the day, he's, I think, just like a big mayor. There's only, like, 11 million people in Cuba. He's a big mayor.

Once I heard about the electronic voting machines, and how they weren't gonna be audited, and no one would be able to go in and verify what the votes were. And then the exit poll thing - wasn't that kind of weird? How the exit polls didn't match up to the voting... I feel like, you know, they dropped a couple lines of code in here and there, and swung a couple states in their direction.

One, I push my deadlines closer than anybody else, or let's say it this way: I'm really late.

Perhaps it's time to start examining countries that have made democracy work while still having some kind of the same relationship in covenant with their population. Perhaps we need to look at the Scandinavian countries, or Canada, or something else, but whatever we have now, I think we just have to acknowledge, ain't workin.

Republicans lost it some time ago. What's scary is when they lose their sense of good planning. Like dude, you know, if you're gonna lie, really... It's a big thing to fake your way into a war. Like, think it through. Do a better job at the lie, if that's what it's gonna be. Do a better job - I mean, whatever your goals were in invading Iraq, it couldn't have been this. This can't be all part of some master plan. Something went wrong.

That's not saying there's not a bunch of good Democrats. I'm sure there's a lot of people who still haven't figured that out yet or simply don't want to have that pessimistic of an outlook, but I think the Democratic Party is completely worthless.

The American people have no control over what the military does. We have no say in American foreign policy.

The biggest thing that I don't like about L.A. is the sort of 2 a.m. shutdown of everything. It really kind of stagnates the nightlife. It's very hard to casually have fun in Los Angeles. If you want to go out and have fun it's like a full-time job, you have to really prepare, and call ahead, and get on a list, and know somebody... It's really rough to relax here.

Voting really doesn't mean anything. I wish I could say something different, but I think it's kind of a sham.

We did our best to do a Fox show, frankly, I don't think the difficulties we had at Fox would be exclusive to Fox. It's tough to be funny, because there's so many eyeballs and there's so much money at stake that I think everything is just kind of over-thought. And it's tough to be daring and do something different, either with regards to content or even structure.